1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for reusing conventional plastic merchandise carrying bags, such as plastic grocery bags, as waste receptacle liners and as hanging trash bags.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For many years grocery stores and other retail merchandise outlets which sell small, consumer items, have typically employed checkout clerks and other personnel who place articles purchased by a customer in one or more paper sacks. Numerous odd shaped items can be placed in such paper sacks to allow the customer to carry items of purchase within such sacks from the retail establishment. The use of such sacks serves the basic purpose of providing the customer with a sack in which numerous, small, odd shaped items can easily be transported from the retail establishment.
Conventional sacks which have been provided for this purpose are constructed of relatively heavy brown paper which will not tear apart even if used to carry relatively heavy items of purchase. At the checkout counter or at a cashier's position a checker or cashier places each of the articles of purchase in paper bags of the types described following tabulation of the cost of the articles of purchase. The use of such paper bags has facilitated the transportation of numerous, small items purchased from a retail establishment to the home of a purchaser. The sacks are typically carried by hand or in a shopping cart from a retail sales establishment and loaded into the back seat or trunk of a vehicle, such as an automobile. Once the consumer returns to his or her dwelling, the sacks are unloaded from the vehicle and carried by hand into the dwelling. Once inside the dwelling the articles purchased are unpacked and stored in their appropriate locations. At this point the sacks have completed their primary useful function.
The paper sacks used to transport groceries and other articles purchased for household consumption are relatively stiff, since they must be able to transport relatively heavy items without tearing. Although paper sacks of this type were not intended for reuse when provided by the grocery and other retail establishments to consumers, consumers soon discovered that these paper sacks could serve a secondary function as receptacles for waste materials. While the paper sacks are not rigid and can be readily folded, they are constructed of paper stiff enough so that the sacks, once opened, will remain open. Thus, the paper sacks provided by grocery stores and other retail merchandise establishments, once transported by the consumer to the dwelling of the consumer, have frequently been reused as trash can and waste basket liners. That is, the user would open the sack and position the sack upright within a waste basket or waste can. The surrounding walls of the waste basket or waste can provided a secure enclosure for waste materials, while the paper sack served as a convenient liner. When enough waste material had been placed in the sack, it could be removed from the waste basket or waste can and discarded.
In recent years grocery markets and other retail establishments have increasingly been converting from using paper sacks of the type described to thin, plastic sacks for transporting groceries and other consumer merchandise. Such thin plastic sacks may be purchased by retail establishments more economically than the earlier brown paper sacks. Moreover, the thin plastic sacks weigh considerably less and occupy considerably less volume than an equivalent number of paper sacks. Despite their light weight the plastic sacks are quite strong and will not tear or rip even when loaded with relatively heavy articles of purchase.
Because the plastic sacks are so light in weight, they do not hold their shape, as do paper sacks. As a consequence, the plastic sacks are each manufactured with a pair of loops which serve as carrying handles or straps at opposing, upper edges of the sacks. The loops or straps define opposing openings at the upper edge of the plastic sack and are easily gripped by the hand of a user. That is, the user places the fingers of one hand through both of the loops at the top of the sack and carries the sack by these loops. The handgrips, when juxtaposed together within the hand of a user, serve as a convenient handle for carrying the sack. Moreover, by holding both loops at the upper edges of opposite sides of the sack together, a user ensures that the mouth of the sack is at least partially closed while the sack is being transported. This reduces the likelihood that any articles of purchase will spill from the sack as it is carried.
While the thin, polyethylene plastic grocery and merchandise bags of the type described perform their primary function at least as well as the prior paper sacks, there has heretofore been no way of using these plastic sacks for a secondary function as a trash bag or waste receptacle liner once the plastic sacks have served their primary function as a means for carrying groceries and other articles of merchandise from a retail establishment to the dwelling of a consumer. Many consumers, who have relied upon the conventional paper sacks as a source of supply of trash bags and waste receptacle liners have thus been left without a source of supply of such items when shopping at a retail establishment which has converted from paper to plastic sacks. As a consequence, many consumers have indicated a strong preference for the paper sacks which they have historically used as trash bags and waste receptacle liners. Thus, retail establishments have, in many cases, been forced to offer the alternative of the more traditional paper sacks when a consumers expresses a preference for such sacks over the more economical plastic sacks. Retailers have therefore been faced with both the expense and inconvenience of maintaining supplies of two different types of sacks for transporting articles of consumer merchandise from their establishments.
The very thin, polyethylene plastic sacks which are now widely utilized for carrying groceries and other articles of merchandise have heretofore been incapable of serving as trash bags and waste receptacle liners. The thin, lightweight structure of these plastic sacks is such that the bags will not stand freely in any manner, either unsupported or supported by the walls of a surrounding waste receptacle. To the contrary, the structure of the plastic sacks immediately collapses and the mouths of the plastic bags will not remain open to receive waste materials.